It appears that Nagheh Saeed has decided to take a restraining order out on her husband now that he is no longer in an Iranian jail. Where he was been rotting for five years. She is claiming (a) he was abusive and (b) it is unfair that this has got out and there has been publicity.
Boise Pastor Saeed Abedini is back home in Boise. He flew in by private jet last night.
His wife Naghmeh says Saeed was reunited with his children. But we learned that Naghmeh filed legal papers in court having to do with domestic relations.
We now have more information about what that means. Wednesday morning, Naghmeh posted a lengthy statement to her Facebook page.
She says she hid from the public abuse that she has lived with for most of her marriage. She went on to say that her husband demanded she promote him in the eyes of the public and that she could not do that any longer.
Naghmeh says she still hopes to reconcile with Saeed under the right circumstances, but she’s leaving that in God’s hands.
A facebook page to followers is pretty damn public.
Um, abuse is not being told to do something. Or asked to do something: Saeed was in jail. Abuse is being beaten, injured. If abuse means yelling then every disagreement is a reason for the churchian to divorce, and there is no meaning in the vows. Regardless of what spiritual words one uses.
Naghmeh Abedini hasn’t been able to determine who in November 2015 leaked to the media emails she had sent only to close friends. In those emails, she revealed her marriage was strained by abuse, but later expressed regrets for sending the emails even to close friends.
“It’s unfortunate that your family is going through so much pain and people try to profit off of it and put it out there,” she said. “Because Saeed was made aware of it, it will make it that much harder for us to pursue healing and reconciliation. So I was very heartbroken.”
But the revelation of the marital strife has proved to be a blessing that has taught her to rely more heavily on the Lord through prayer and fasting, she told BP today.
“That’s how God works,” she said. “The worst things in our life turn out to be the best blessing.” She trusts God to make beauty out of ashes, she said, evoking Isaiah 61:3, and to use the situation as a ministry to others.
“For most of my marriage, I’d idolized Saeed, and through my fast I was made aware of that and the importance of putting God first, which seems to be Christianity 101 in action,” she said. “This last fast really had me focused on the Lord. It took his imprisonment for me to break that idol and focus on the Lord fully and to see issues that are so hidden.”
The Lord has taught her to forgive and love her husband, she said, while still establishing boundaries in the relationship.
“It was difficult because Saeed was the first person I ever dated, the love of my life, and he still is,” she told BP. “But [I’ve learned] that can’t override my relationship with God and my obedience to God. Obedience to my husband is very important, but when it’s biblical and when it’s healthy…. I’m sure many, many Christians know that, but for me, it was a new lesson to learn.”
Her husband was converted to Christianity at age 20, she said, and grew up in an Iranian cultural environment that subjugates women.
Bluntly, I don’t care about what he said. She has been safe in America. He has been in jail. To hit him with a restraining order when all he wants to do is come to his kids is horrible. Boxer, at Dalrock’s place, describes the situation.
When I read the new testament, I see no reason why an observant Christian woman should be divorcing her husband, with the exception of her husband whoring around (not symbolically with porn, but literally and physically, with other women).
Admittedly, I don’t know what goes on in Iran’s prison system, but I imagine it is much like America’s: very depressing, with brief bursts of (usually guard-initiated) brutality, and no opportunity for female companionship. His incarceration makes the thought that he has been unfaithful very difficult to believe.
With this in mind, Naghmeh seems to have no religious justification for separating from Saeed. I know she reads here, so I’ll continue hoping she finds some dignity. A faithful wife of a man who has been tried this way is a hero, but a woman who divorces her man after he has been through hard times is a common ho’, and not worthy of anyone’s respect. Naghmeh has a choice to make. The easy way is the way of reconciliation. I hope she’s not foolish enough to think that any normal man would trust or love her, after she did her husband dirty. If your husband can’t trust you, then no one can.
Do the right thing, Naghmeh. Work it out and be an honorable wife and mother to your kids.
If he is a macho Iranian, then deal with it: you are an Iranian women and Spengler’s rule applies: in every time and every nation the men and women of that place deserve each other.
Over the years many men have commented on this blog that they were abandoned by their churches once their wives decided to blow up their families. While this will be small comfort, they should at least realize that this wasn’t due to any defect in themselves. In this case we had a persecuted pastor being accused of abusing his wife from his Iranian prison cell, and the best response he received was silence as his wife publicly erased him from the picture.
Nagmeh, I understand you are in pain. But you need to set your house in order.
- Go private. Take down your facebook page and twitter feed
- Seek godly counsel from women with successful marriages who are Christian, not churchian. For you need to suck it up and work through the issues of remaking your marriage.
- Keep your kids out of it. They are on the top of your Twitter page. It should look like mine: your kids are civilians
- Stop using spiritual words. Start using feeling words. With your husband. Whom you should call Lord, as Sarah did.
- Finally, do not look at the US church. It is infected with the Duluth model: many church pastors are mandated to report all abuse. Look instead to Africa, to Arabia, to Persia, to Russia, where the martyrs are being made. Look at those women and men. Emulate them.
To make it easier, this is what my twitter feed looks like. I have children I love dearly, friends I love, grandchildren I love, parents I love and a woman I am courting. None of them appear on the front page, for they are civilians.
You have a choice. In tears, take up your difficult situation, and work together, and a Christian woman.
Or be a Churchian, see your husband destroyed by the family courts, your children damaged, and your soul in perdition.
I’m not sure about the last bit of point 4 which may reflect cultural traditions where women were second class. There is one Lord and I for one would be very uncomfortable to be called that by my wife whom I am commanded to love as Christ loved the Church. A bigger expectation than I can meet but she knows I try and that is, for her, enough. I’m grateful indeed.
Nagmeh, I understand you are in pain. But you need to set your house in order.
All very solid suggestions. However:
Go private. Take down your facebook page and twitter feed
Asking a modern woman to get off of Farcebook or Twaddle is akin to asking them to do without food, water, or oxygen. Attention and drama are the other two life-sustaining necessities for woman, and social media are their means of getting them. One hundred percent certainty that Nagmeh will never even entertain a thought of giving up her social media.
Seek godly counsel from women with successful marriages who are Christian, not churchian. For you need to suck it up and work through the issues of remaking your marriage.
Alas, such women (so-called “Titus 2 women”) are as extinct as the dodo bird and the mastedon. We can be almost certain that there are none in Nagmeh’s church or in any of her social circles, or if there are, she is ignoring their counsel. Otherwise she would not only have been heeding their advice, but would be mentioning them specifically as being sources of strength.
This is why Traditional Christianity is still up. This is why I recommend women get hold of Elspeth and Hearthie and this is why I have some such women in the blogroll
Keep your kids out of it. They are on the top of your Twitter page. It should look like mine: your kids are civilians
NEVER forget that in today’s society, churchian and secular, children are status symbols, pawns, and WEAPONS – nothing more. They have no intrinsic value as human beings to most parents –especially most MOTHERS– beyond that. Nagmeh’s self-serving use of her kids in her social media campaigns as pawns and weapons is repulsive on a visceral level, but not at all unusual for the modern mother dominated by the FI and a selfish agenda.
The older women should teach the younger how to love their husbands and children. This is should be part of standard feminine wisdom. It should be common sense.
Stop using spiritual words. Start using feeling words. With your husband. Whom you should call Lord, as Sarah did.
“Spiritual” words are her preferred manipulation weapon of choice, as they apparently gull the most people the most effectively (outside the manosphere, that is). No woman needs ANY encouragement to use “feeling” words, and when they do they’re usually inappropriate for the circumstances. As for calling her husband “Lord,” I know of NO woman, no matter how submissive, who wouldn’t rather have her own tongue ripped out of her thorax and be strangled to death with it first – even if God Himself commanded that she do so in an unmistakeable manner.
I’m quoting Paul. The Apostle. Our modern age is fallen
Finally, do not look at the US church. It is infected with the Duluth model: many church pastors are mandated to report all abuse. Look instead to Africa, to Arabia, to Persia, to Russia, where the martyrs are being made. Look at those women and men. Emulate them.
Solid advice that would go in one ear and right out the other, but not before being savagely mocked. Nagmeh, a StrongIndependentModernWoman[TM] (at least in her own mind), having been brought to “civilized” America from her barbaric Persian homeland, would no more consider looking to that part of the world for spiritual guidance than J.K. Rowling would consider moving back to the slums of Glasgow.
Richness has never, ever, been seen as righteousness. The OT teaches instead it will harden our hearts. And Christ said something about a camel getting through a needle…
Nagmeh is determined to make a hard, lumpy, dirty bed that she has defecated and urinated in. It remains to be seen how long she’ll be able to stand sleeping in it.
Well said. I’m praying for this to exit the public sphere–with a public apology by Mrs. Abedini-and for things to reenter the world of Matthew 18 counseling. I would guess that two will need to make apologies, if not the church that saw the wheels coming off but did nothing.
The Christian press have been enabling this. It is horrible, but only the eldership and the godly older women who work with them should know about it. Hearthie is correct. Dirty laundry belongs in the washing machine, not in public
What BB said. Criticizing your husband in public is tacky to begin with. (Old rule: We don’t air our dirty laundry in front of strangers). Criticizing your husband as he’s exiting an Iranian jail? Excusable only by God’s grace.
IF her allegations were true, the way to deal with them would be to have a close confidante or two as support while her husband came home and got settled for a few months, then privately address them with him, in all humility. I’m sure he’s going to need therapy after his ordeal, so that would be a good time to gently bring marital discord up.
THIS is disgusting. It’s a power trip, and I don’t have time for that nonsense.
Yeah, and it happens too often. Women (like you) need to say that to the wife that is being tempted by those lovely family court workers and social workers. And I’d rather run a church (God preserve me from that) than have to deal with this kind of mess: it is bad enough patching up the victims
The problem is that women find echo chambers (I don’t know if you guys do this) rather than advisers who will kick them in the tails with truth. You think she’d talk to someone like ME? No way. I have to practically do somersaults to find younger women to Titus 2.
There’s actually a little introductory dance you do with stuff you want people to side with you on… and if you don’t get the response you want, the relationship goes away. (Have had this happen more than once – someone confesses to something, if you don’t pet them and tell them it wasn’t their fault, suddenly you aren’t on the friendship path any more.)
I *hope* that men don’t run their social circles like this.
In my experience, Hearthie, the more “red pill” or truth seeking sites and people will call you out as being a wimp when you are, and kick your butt in the gym.
Social Justice Wounded sites ban me, and in real life no-platform people such as me.